It is hard to compare this game to others, mostly because it was already around when the term MMO had been shaped, and its influence on the further development of this type of game can't be denied. You might find things that other online games did better, and things that EQ2 did better than stuff that came later.

Nice things first.
It is a rather charming game, despite the old graphics. Quests are plenty to have, and even if they tend to be get-this-kill-that, the writing and overall structure makes most of them unique. The world is vast and zones are diverse, there’s hidden places and nice details all over. You can spend hours roaming the landscapes, solving quests and exploring caves or ruins, or, if you are brave, enter a dungeon. These come in two versions: Public ones, and more difficult instances which tend to contain boss monsters.
Another thing that I personally like are the different races. Despite being more or less cosmetic in nature, each one has a unique feel and history to explore, and the NPCs you meet will all add to the feeling you get for each of the species, playable or not. With so many races to chose from, one tends to overlook that each race has only a hand full of customization options like hair, horns, or so. From a roleplaying perspective, having so much variety is awesome, even more so since the races EverQuest offers are not only humans with strange ears, but truly something different. You can be a valorous frog, an ugly troll, a dwarf, a vampire, some dragon-human-hybrid, or a ratman. And not only that! Even when you start as an “evil” race like, you have the option to betray your faction and switch sides. That is really something I’d wish all faction-based games would offer (yes I am looking at you, WoW).
Next thing: Houses! There are many different housings available, each city has different options, cheap or pricy, big or cozy. You can clutter your home with stuff of all kind, many quests reward you with furniture, but you can also craft it yourself, if you chose to become a carpenter. You can even allow other people to visit your home, or stuff it full of pets. Your choice!
The classes EQ2 offers are varied, which ensures that most types of players will find something that matches their preference, both in play style and aesthetics. They are sorted into four archetypes: Mages, Priests, Scouts, and Fighters, which all have several subtypes. Most of these come in two versions. For example, you can chose to become a classical wizard, wielding frost and fire, or you can be the darker counterpart of the wizard, a warlock, which fills the same roll, but uses dark magic like curses and poison. All races can become any class, and even if some start out to be better mages or fighters than others, these advantages will smooth down over time. Still, some classes are alignment-locked. A necromancer can only be evil, while its counterpart, the conjurer, can only be good.
The game offers mercenaries, hired NPCs with a hand full of abilities borrowed from a player class. They will level with you, fight for you, can be trained and equiped to become better. When you play alone, these are very handy. Sadly, they are premade, so you have to take what you get, even if you don’t want a human paladin. Choices are rather slim, and while you will find all classes and roles present, you will probably never get what you really want.


These are, so far, the most notable things I like on the game.
Now to the not-so-great things.


One thing you should be aware:
EverQuest II is an old game. Most of the players are old. Since me beginning to play in June 2020, I didn't find a single one who hadn't been playing for years, some are there since the very beginning. Unfortunately, the game is not beginner-friendly. My guess is, that the developers could only chose between keeping the already low number of veteran players, or trying to attract new ones. They decided for the first way. The game is extremely complex, has many numbers, mechanics, tricks, shortcuts, and almost nothing is explained. Without help from a senior player, you are hopelessly lost. Newbies are very rare, and most veterans focus on their main character, and maybe two or three alts, to cover the crafting. Low-level regions are empty. You will not find a group for dungeons. The players still active usually grind through high-end stuff, and honestly, most loot my guild mates are after don’t make any sense to me, since I still have my problems understanding end-game mechanics, and them numbers are already so high that I fail to recognize the different. One weapon does 123,239.29 damage, the other 123,329.29, which one is better? I don’t even know if these numbers are an actual representation of high-end stuff. My brain just sees “big number” and “another big number”. Which is bad, since you need these numbers. The main goal is to raises your stats. That’s basically all this game is about, sadly. Numbers. Stats. It has so much lore, which is nowhere to be seen. The guides and wikis only cover strategies, if at all. Players I met often don’t even care about stories. No, it’s stats. Always. Get the best, have the best, be the best. People sit on their mounts all the time, because they give buffs. Better mounts equal better buffs. And don’t think about buying something. While there is some sort of marketplace called the broker, the prices are insane, and almost all interesting items are not tradeable.
Which brings me to the major point for my thumbs down.
Getting somewhere in this game more or less requires that you have access to rare loot, or something that was a goody ages ago. Mounts, mercenaries, even some mechanics like reforging (I don’t know what this is supposed to do but it seems to be important!). These things were either pre-order rewards for earlier expansions, or part of collectors editions and so on. Weren’t around in 2011 when something nice was available? Too bad, you will never get it. Yes, the basic expansions are all included in the free-to-play version, you only have to buy the latest addon. That is nice, really, but please, let me get older stuff as well! Yes, you can go on without these things. A portion is really just prestige. Some others, like mounts, are not, since what you can get ingame is far from what people who own some collectors edition have. Sure, it was supposed to be a goody. A reward for being a year-long veteran player who preordered all of the deluxe editions.
If you are not, don’t dare setting a foot into high-level content, you will need infused fabled super-rare stuff trice reforged, not to talk about some legendary mount trained to the max and that mercenary that is a reward for 10 years of playing. Yes, some things I mentioned are available at the ingame store for real money. Many things are not. I do understand why most players focus on a single character: Going through the process to get all the things necessary to be a decent player is a pain, if not outright impossible.

For a game that offer so many interesting things to try and play, this approach is an absolute no-go, and the reason that I won’t recommend anyone starting this. You will need much, much time, and money. But even then, you will not be able to get all this game has to offer. You, like me, simply came too late.

It is hard to compare this game to others, mostly because it was already around when the term MMO had been shaped, and its influence on the further development of this type of game can't be denied. You might find things that other online games did better, and things that EQ2 did better than stuff that came later. Nice things first. It is a rather charming game, despite the old graphics. Quests are plenty to have, and even if they tend to be get-this-kill-that, the writing and overall structure makes most of them unique. The world is vast and zones are diverse, there’s hidden places and nice details all over. You can spend hours roaming the landscapes, solving quests and exploring caves or ruins, or, if you are brave, enter a dungeon. These come in two versions: Public ones, and more difficult instances which tend to contain boss monsters. Another thing that I personally like are the different races. Despite being more or less cosmetic in nature, each one has a unique feel and history to explore, and the NPCs you meet will all add to the feeling you get for each of the species, playable or not. With so many races to chose from, one tends to overlook that each race has only a hand full of customization options like hair, horns, or so. From a roleplaying perspective, having so much variety is awesome, even more so since the races EverQuest offers are not only humans with strange ears, but truly something different. You can be a valorous frog, an ugly troll, a dwarf, a vampire, some dragon-human-hybrid, or a ratman. And not only that! Even when you start as an “evil” race like, you have the option to betray your faction and switch sides. That is really something I’d wish all faction-based games would offer (yes I am looking at you, WoW). Next thing: Houses! There are many different housings available, each city has different options, cheap or pricy, big or cozy. You can clutter your home with stuff of all kind, many quests reward you with furniture, but you can also craft it yourself, if you chose to become a carpenter. You can even allow other people to visit your home, or stuff it full of pets. Your choice! The classes EQ2 offers are varied, which ensures that most types of players will find something that matches their preference, both in play style and aesthetics. They are sorted into four archetypes: Mages, Priests, Scouts, and Fighters, which all have several subtypes. Most of these come in two versions. For example, you can chose to become a classical wizard, wielding frost and fire, or you can be the darker counterpart of the wizard, a warlock, which fills the same roll, but uses dark magic like curses and poison. All races can become any class, and even if some start out to be better mages or fighters than others, these advantages will smooth down over time. Still, some classes are alignment-locked. A necromancer can only be evil, while its counterpart, the conjurer, can only be good. The game offers mercenaries, hired NPCs with a hand full of abilities borrowed from a player class. They will level with you, fight for you, can be trained and equiped to become better. When you play alone, these are very handy. Sadly, they are premade, so you have to take what you get, even if you don’t want a human paladin. Choices are rather slim, and while you will find all classes and roles present, you will probably never get what you really want. These are, so far, the most notable things I like on the game. Now to the not-so-great things. One thing you should be aware: EverQuest II is an old game. Most of the players are old. Since me beginning to play in June 2020, I didn't find a single one who hadn't been playing for years, some are there since the very beginning. Unfortunately, the game is not beginner-friendly. My guess is, that the developers could only chose between keeping the already low number of veteran players, or trying to attract new ones. They decided for the first way. The game is extremely complex, has many numbers, mechanics, tricks, shortcuts, and almost nothing is explained. Without help from a senior player, you are hopelessly lost. Newbies are very rare, and most veterans focus on their main character, and maybe two or three alts, to cover the crafting. Low-level regions are empty. You will not find a group for dungeons. The players still active usually grind through high-end stuff, and honestly, most loot my guild mates are after don’t make any sense to me, since I still have my problems understanding end-game mechanics, and them numbers are already so high that I fail to recognize the different. One weapon does 123,239.29 damage, the other 123,329.29, which one is better? I don’t even know if these numbers are an actual representation of high-end stuff. My brain just sees “big number” and “another big number”. Which is bad, since you need these numbers. The main goal is to raises your stats. That’s basically all this game is about, sadly. Numbers. Stats. It has so much lore, which is nowhere to be seen. The guides and wikis only cover strategies, if at all. Players I met often don’t even care about stories. No, it’s stats. Always. Get the best, have the best, be the best. People sit on their mounts all the time, because they give buffs. Better mounts equal better buffs. And don’t think about buying something. While there is some sort of marketplace called the broker, the prices are insane, and almost all interesting items are not tradeable. Which brings me to the major point for my thumbs down. Getting somewhere in this game more or less requires that you have access to rare loot, or something that was a goody ages ago. Mounts, mercenaries, even some mechanics like reforging (I don’t know what this is supposed to do but it seems to be important!). These things were either pre-order rewards for earlier expansions, or part of collectors editions and so on. Weren’t around in 2011 when something nice was available? Too bad, you will never get it. Yes, the basic expansions are all included in the free-to-play version, you only have to buy the latest addon. That is nice, really, but please, let me get older stuff as well! Yes, you can go on without these things. A portion is really just prestige. Some others, like mounts, are not, since what you can get ingame is far from what people who own some collectors edition have. Sure, it was supposed to be a goody. A reward for being a year-long veteran player who preordered all of the deluxe editions. If you are not, don’t dare setting a foot into high-level content, you will need infused fabled super-rare stuff trice reforged, not to talk about some legendary mount trained to the max and that mercenary that is a reward for 10 years of playing. Yes, some things I mentioned are available at the ingame store for real money. Many things are not. I do understand why most players focus on a single character: Going through the process to get all the things necessary to be a decent player is a pain, if not outright impossible. For a game that offer so many interesting things to try and play, this approach is an absolute no-go, and the reason that I won’t recommend anyone starting this. You will need much, much time, and money. But even then, you will not be able to get all this game has to offer. You, like me, simply came too late.